So here's the scoop

Feb 24th.

We have been in Africa for exactly one month today.

It has been an interesting time. Not easy, really. Of course we were expecting it to be difficult. Living in a different culture alone is difficult, and we have had many more challenges than that. It has been fun and good, too, don't get me wrong.

We are back in New Hope having spent the end of last week at the Davises in Kampala. Speaking of which, I now have a picture of all 5 of us, so you can see the friends we are talking about.


So many of you are probably wondering what happened to Ellie last week. So on Sunday she had the writhing in pain episode which she recovered from quite quickly. Then as the week began she continued to have some pain and random bleeding. So it was arranged for her to have a doctor appointment in Kampala on Wednesday while another friend from New Hope did some shopping. (Kampala is about 3 hours away, although only about 60 km, which tells you alot about traffic and the state of Ugandan roads.) So she went to that appointment and he basically said she needed to see a specialist. So off she went to another clinic, on the other side of the city, to see an ultrasound technician. With those test results she returned to the clinic, and they informed her of the bad news that she had either an ectopic pregnancy (pregnancy outside the uterus like in the ovaries) or Pelvic Infectious Disease. They ruled out the PID quickly. The doctor said to call John from New Hope ASAP and to have him come to prepare for surgery at the International Hospital the next day for a larposcopy and all kinds of other things. (which can be a dangerous procedure) She immediately called me, and I climbed off the roof where I had been working, showered and got on a motorcycle to catch the next taxi to Kampala.

Then she called a friend who reccomended a different ultrasound technician, to get a second opinion. So she rushed across the city again to make it there before the clinic closed, and recieved highly professional and knowledgable care. Turns out the other tech had mis-diagnosed her completely, and what had actually happened was that an ovarian cyst had ruptured, and that the body would heal itself ; all she needed to do was rest.

Needless to say, wednesday was a bit stressful for both of us.

So we laid low a few days at the Davises, John helped with a few more projects around their house, and got an unexpected break from working on the roof. I read some books and relaxed a little; it was very nice.



Today we went to church. I brought my camera with me this time, just in case there were any more engagement announcements like last week. I was hoping to be able to capture that exuberance that I wrote about.
Well, we were doubly blessed. Hah. This week we had not 1, but 2 engagement announcments, and one of the ladies is a friend of ours (the lady who helped us when Ellie first collapsed). I managed to get a little of the pandemonium on video. ( I will say that it was not quite as loud or crazy as last week, but you get the idea.) Even with Pastor Jonnes shouting into the microphone, you could barely hear him. As Tim said, it was like a football game.

Video Link

I cried again. heh. couldn't help it.

The Davises have a very nice big swing that Jon and I are modifying to be more user-friendly. ( i.e., can accomodate large people like me without scraping the ground.)



Uncle Mark and Uncle Dan helped make a see-saw, too.

Video Link

Prayed for you folks at church today. Hope you're all having a nice lunch.

john

Long Story

Hello Folks.

Well we have had an interesting couple of days. Because we’re on a borrowed internet connection, I won’t take the time to relay the whole saga, but suffice it to say that Ellie is ok. She still has a cold and some lingering stomach pain, but on the whole she is on the mend. We’re going to stay in Kampala another day to be sure, but we’re feeling pretty confident about the diagnosis. (After a rather scary mis-diagnosis.)

We’ll write down the whole story another day. Thanks all of you for your prayers, they indeed were effective, both in ways we see now and will see down the road.


john

Prayer request

Feb 19th

Hi everyone, missing all of you! it's great getting updates from you. A prayer request: The stomach pains haven't gone away yet (although it isn't nearly as bad as that crazy collapsing/writhing event from Sunday-now they are just constant). it's gotten to the point at which the clinic at New Hope can't diagnose me so I am going to a doctor in Kampala so hopefully he can diagnose me and do any lab tests if need be. My appointment is at 11am (which is 3am Michigan time --Don't bother waking up to pray at that time unless God wakes you up personally)! The cold I got from James is getting worse; his is going 10 days so far and still going strong, but that's the least of my worries at the moment. In any case, i'm not worried about any of it yet unless the doctor says i should be so i'll keep you posted. The doctor is supposed to be very kind, caring and knowledgeable. missionaries from NHU go to him often and so i feel confident. anyway, thanks for praying. love to all

Ellie

Feb 17th.

Ellie is feeling sick. James (one of the institute students) had a cold and probably gave it her, because her throat really hurts and she doesn't feel good. Luckily, she doesn't have a headache also, which would be a telltale sign of malaria.

Church today was long, but good. One of the coolest parts was when an engagement was announced. Here at New Hope they have a formal (from our point of view) process that a couple goes through to be considered ready to be married, meeting with mentors, etc. Anyway, it is pretty much behind the scenes and secret until it is formally announced to the community. So when Pastor Jonnes said there are two among us who desire to walk together towards marriage, the place erupted. This was even before they knew who it was. And when he reached into the choir and grabbed the shoulder of the man and said his name, all the men leapt into the air, hooting and hollering, waving their arms and jumping. And then when he reached over and said the name of the girl, there was screaming and general pandemonium for about a minute. I have never seen such exuberant celebration in my life. I wish I had it on tape. Mark and Ellen, it was a small picture of the angels doing backflips in Revelation. It makes you appreciate what heaven might be like.

Two things struck me ( and made me cry)

1. Can you imagine standing up there and being the recipient/participant of all that exulatation. Imagine standing in the choir in front of a room of 300 people with someone you really want to marry. Then the pastor turns and says that you and your intended beloved are thinking about getting married, and the entire congregation, young and old, man and woman alike, immediately leaps to their feet and cheers for almost 10 minutes straight because they can't even contain their joy. What a feeling. I was overcome on their behalf, and still am.(as an aside, a similar kind of reaction was exhibited at the end of our wedding. Some said they had never seen spontaneous applause like that as we walked down the aisle.)

2. This was just an engagement announcement. Not even a marriage, not a life turned around, not an alcoholic turned sober, not a prodigal son returning, not someone who has chosen to follow God for the first time. What if we could see the real outcome of momentous decisions like these? I don't mean to discount their joy. In fact, I'm delighted, and encourage it. But there are things that are equally or even more important that are deserving of even greater joy. Why don't we have as much joy for those things? I know I don't. I think part of it is because we don't understand, and because we can't or don't see the real and long-term consequences. Obviously, we are not prescient; we cannot, like God, see the future. But still.


We so rarely experience real, raw joy. Joy has become a flat word; it has lost much of its meaning, becoming almost synonymous with happiness. Happiness is a meager substitute for joy, and some folks even chase happiness in vain. Today I feel like a joy addict. I want more of the joy of the Lord, more joy at the things that are worth rejoicing over, joy that I am a free man, joy over the gift that Ellie is to me, joyous to be a servant.

The scriptures say to rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn, and I have certainly done both of those in in these last few days.

(Later in the day)

We had quite a scare today. Ellie has had a sore throat for a few days, but nothing terribly serious. But this afternoon all of a sudden she had horrific lower stomach pains. She collapsed on the latrine floor drenched in sweat, then made her way back to the house asking me for help, when I had no idea what was wrong with her. She writhed in pain on the ground outside the hut, for maybe 5 minutes as I ran and got some help. Auntie Florence and Katie came, and we prayed and called the nurse. Florence sat her up and craddled her upper torso and told me to grab something to tightly wrap her stomach in (much to Ellie's concern!) After we prayed, she started feeling a bit better, at least being able to communicate with us, although very weakly. Roget, the nurse came; by that time she was able to stand and walk to the couch inside and lay back down. He said it could have been a reaction to the antimalarial meds she took at lunch. He gave her some advil for the stomach pain, gave me his cellphone number, and left with her laughing weakly. Anyway, I carried her in to her bed, she lay there and drank some water and relaxed for a while and we just talked. She had some dinner and is feeling much better now and is happily playing solitaire on her bed. Those first 10 seconds when I saw her stumble and collapse on the ground were quite terrifying, however.

Remember the merry go round? Go watch this video

http://picasaweb.google.com/johncollman/Uganda/photo#5167999116999635458



Ok. off to bed. I've got a lot of work to do this week on the guesthouse. My goal is to have the roof done by the end of the week.

I'd like my socks Ironed, Please

Feb 16th

It's funny to get your socks back ironed.

Let me explain.

Our current arrangement (the standard one for New Hope) is that the ladies do our laundry everyday, and we eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with the students from the Institute or other teams that happen to be here. Also, our house/hut is cleaned every day. It is quite a shift from what we're used to.
So the socks- The ladies that do the laundry do it all by hand in a wash-basin and hang it up on clotheslines to dry. The reason that we get our socks ironed is not because Ugandans are fastidious about appearance. (which they are, by the way) It is because there is a bug called a mango fly/botfly that lands on drying laundry and lays its larvae there. When you put the clothes on, the larvae in turn burrow into your skin.....and i'll stop there for our more squeamish readers. (do a google search for mango fly if you're curious)

Luckily, this is easily solved by ironing everything to kill the larvae. So underwear, socks, hankerchiefs and all get ironed. And not with a fancy auto-steaming electric iron, either. They use your grandmothers hot-coal-filled piece of iron.

The team has left, so dinner is much quieter these days. It was nice for me to get a day off today; I was pretty tuckered out from last week.

As you can see, safety is job #1 in Uganda.




Structural integrity is a little different here, as there are no building codes. So 8 foot on center is good enough for these trusses (Some are 9', some 7')



This is Abu and James. They work with me on the guest house.



Uncle Mark fixed the merry-go-round. The kids are very happy.



Heres a link to a video of the kids on the merry go round.

Click Here for Video

We have bats living in our ceiling. They make an awful lot of noise during the night. Their landings into the metal roof are kind of sloppy sometimes. heh.

As always, make sure to click on the pictures to go to the web albums where there are more pictures.

Peace

John

Feb 13th.

The rest of the team leaves tomorrow to go on safari, which leaves us with the 3 members of the new team that just arrived today. Church on sunday was neat; your standard 2.5 hour service. about an hour of worship, a half hour of talking/announcements/community life, and about an hour of preaching and prayer.

Finishing the guesthouse by myself is a little daunting, but I will have the Ugandans who have been helping us. I'm assuming that New Hope will want me to keep working on it. However, Sam from the IT department is really pushing to put my computer expertise to work. We'll see. It will certainly make my days a little easier. Computer work doesn't start until 9, and you get off at 5, and you're not dripping with sweat hanging from a truss 15 feet in the air in the blazing sun.

So I should explain. New Hope has this class that runs for 4 months twice a year, called New Hope Institute of Childcare and Family. It is basically a prerequisite to being on staff at New Hope, and teaches all aspects of the work that they do here. But there are many people who take it who do not plan on coming on staff, but take it because they are pastors and want to be better equipped, or whatever. We actually thought about taking it, but it didn't work out. So there are local Ugandans, Ugandans who have come from other parts of the country, and white folk, ( like Tim, he's from Arizona, and James from Northern Ireland.) Anyway, about half of them live in the same set of huts that we do, and the other half commute from the two closest villages. I've been getting to know a few of them, and it's been really good. I'm probably the youngest one of all the guys I hang out with, and I'm the only one who is married. The institute students leave just after we do, so we have a good amount of time to get to know one another. As part of their course, they learn and study a good deal of theology, so at dinner time we get to join in with them in their discusssions.



Feb 9th

We are making some serious progress on the guesthouse. I'll put up some pictures later. We make all the trusses from scratch, and put it all up "Egyptian style" as we've been saying. (meaning all by pure human force. no cranes here.)It is quite an experience. I have pictures and video.

Some of the muzungus from the team and I went and scrimmaged with the New Hope soccer team in preparation for their game tomorrow. That was fun, but man we were beat after that. And my calves got totally fried. This doxycycline really makes you sensitive to the sun. I had even put on sunscreen twice, but still burned. I never burn on my legs. I only let one goal in while playing goalkeeper, and stopped a couple of goals while on defense. Good times. Another amazing thing about playing soccer with Africans: We never saw them drink water. We played for a good hour and a half, not including warm-up and stretching, and no one brought a water bottle except us.

Ellie for the time being will not be in the class that she was in, which is a good thing. We will go to church tomorrow at New Hope, which should be an experience. The service will probably be around 3 hours or so. I heard them practicing some songs, actually even now I can hear them, and some are familiar, which is nice.

here is our hut.

Update

Feb 6th.

Today is my birthday. I am a quarter century old. It started off pretty well. We made some progress on the guesthouse. However, it took a turn for the worse when my stomach that it didn't like whatever I had put in it a while ago, and turned itself into knots trying to evacuate itself as fast as possible while doing a backflip. Lets just say it wasn't pleasant. There are lots of nasty bugs here. So I missed lunch because I was sitting on the concrete recovering, concentrating on the nice feel of the breeze on my cheek, trying not to move any muscles to save energy. SO, today's lesson is, ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS, and thoroughly.

So now that my belly is empty, I feel somewhat better, but now I have no food in me to give me energy. Doh. so i'm going to rest instead of going back to making rafter tails for the guesthouse on the most rickety ladder I have every seen or stood on.

We had a lovely rain last night/early this morning, from about 3 or 4 until 6. Pounding hard rain with thunder and lightning. It is supposed to be the dry season, but there has been occasional rain.

Ellie helped make a banna cake for me for my birthday, and everyone sang to me at dinner, of which I ate a little. There is a little boy who was adopted from the baby house, and today is also his birthday. He is 3, and very cute.

Feb 8th.

It is raining again, and it did not stop in the morning like last time. It is 8:30, so Ellie is off to school. However, we cannot work on the roof in a thunderstorm so I am chilling in our banda (hut). I plan on taking advantage of this time to read. When the rain lets up we'll go back to work.

The internet system is not all that I had hoped for. For one, the campus is quite large, so my laptop's little wireless antenna is not strong enough to send back a signal to the tower which is a good quarter mile or more away. Not only that, it seems to be a bit flunky sometimes, not always connecting. Anyway, since I'm on computer duty here as soon as the guesthouse work is done, I'll see what I can do about that. I will be working with Sam, the IT guy to set up more access points around the campus.

The speed also varies greatly. sometimes it seems mildly fast, and others, abysmally slow.

Some of you might be wondering how you can pray for us. That would be awesome; God has been very kind to us in giving us travel mercies so far and thereby answering your prayers for us.

-Pray that we would develop good relationships with the right people. New Hope is a big place, with well over 70 day staff, not to mention volunteers and short term teams. One of the reasons that we're here is to understand if this is the kind of life God would call us to, so it would helpful to get a real handle on what that life is.

-Pray that we don't get malaria. there are a number of folks who have it or are getting over, and a lot of the children have it. I really don't want malaria, because it is not fun.

-Pray that Ellie would be able to adjust to the very different Ugandan style education system.

It is now 10:30, and still raining hard.

A whole lot of entries in One Big One.

We have been keeping a log on the computer even if we couldn't upload it, so here they are.

Some of these are out of order, but hey,at least they are dated.

Jan 25th
Hey all

We've been in Uganda for a few days now, staying with our friends Jon and Jenny Davis, who arrived as missionaries in Kampala about 3 months ago. We had 20 hours of travel to recover from, so we've been pretty chill, mostly helping the Davises take care of their 8-week-old baby girl (who is a very cute and most of the time easy-going baby) and doing some shopping, helping around the house,etc. The Davises are in their language-learning year, so they aren't out and about doing "ministry", just focusing on learning the local tribal language (Luganda), speaking it with their neighbors, and settling into their house. That's why Jon and John will be doing handyman stuff today. John of course is happy to assist.


Stepping out of the Entebbe airport, I found the red dirt on my shoes and took in the smell of burning trash and tropical air. It's funny how burning trash brings back memories, good ones, for both of us. For John, it reminds me of Costa Rica and Mexico, and for Ellie, obviously, being here. It's been really humid here so far and our bodies are quite shocked at the sudden change from Michigan winter!

Uganda is an interesting place, full of contradictions. The guard at the shopping mall stands and happily converses with a friend while holding an automatic rifle. Yet the military police have just a cane, and we hide our cameras so they won't confiscate them. (It's illegal to take pictures of police or army) Kampala is a city of 2 million people, but there are only 2 stoplights, and they only work some of the time. Stranger still is that traffic actually flows better when the lights aren't working (which is most of the time).

Tomorrow we leave for Rwanda, if we can catch a bus. We'll be staying with some friends of Jon and Jenny who are World Venture missionaries in Kigali, the Bennetts, then meeting up with Nathan Gasitura then next day.

Feb 2nd

In Kampala

We came back to Kampala on the bus yesterday, which was better and worse than the ride to Kigali. Better because I wasn't about to blow chunks the first 2 hours, and better because the bus wasn't quite as overbooked, worse because we were in the very back which means every bump is bone-jarringly magnified, and the guys right behind us felt like having a yelled conversation pretty much in my ear for 6 of the 9 hours. One of them talked something about himself as "sober", who knows if it meant he was or wasn't sober, but anyone who feels the need to mention that he is obviously isn't acting like it! Anyway, we made it in one piece. Some others did not; we saw on the way home 3 trucks that had tumbled off the road, including a petrol tank.....

We got to have dinner with Nathan Gasitura (our World Vision contact in Rwanda) and two of his 8 children the night before we left at a restaurant, which was nice. It was the last time to have steak for a while, so I seized the opportunity.
We had a great time with the Bennetts, who are World Venture missionaries in Kigali. Mike Score would love the setup they have there. Gary is doing all kinds of agriculture stuff, and it reminded me a lot of Chene street in terms of the innovation and potential. Tire-gardens, self-feeding tilapia tanks, recycling resources like rabbit/goat/chicken manure, etc. Really neat stuff. They have a biblical school for pastors from around Rwanda who have little to no biblical training, so they come in for 3-week sessions of classes. They eat food from the gardens that they have on the school site. Interestingly, for all the wonderful climate of Rwanda, the soil is very acidic so it is very difficult to grow most things. (acidic-loving plants excluded, obviously)



Having slept in till 7:30, we went to the Oweno market today, which is probably the biggest market in Kampala. It is a huge beehive of activity, stretching for several blocks. The quality and variety of goods available was staggering, but it was mostly divided into clothes and food sections. Each vendor would usually specialize in a subset category of clothing, like men's trousers, or women's undergarments, or green leafy vegetables, etc. The vendors ranged in size from 10 square feet with a pile of shirts to a whole area (maybe 600 square feet) with many hawkers yelling out the particular item that they were holding in the their hands, sorting through a gigantic pile of clothes. The crowds surged through the paths between vendors, in some places with cattle-like shoving and pushing to get in the direction you wanted to go. I have never felt comfortable pushing people aside but there was no choice today. I would have lost sight of Conchepta (the Davises house helper) many times over if I had not just shoved my way through. Imagine the way that Ellie was feeling trying to keep up with her linebacker of a husband. The good thing was that I stand out a good bit because of my height, hat, width, and pasty white color in a sea of dark skin. We were glad to have Conchepta with us because it was a gigantic maze, and there is no way to know whether you are getting a good price or getting totally ripped off.(both of which happened. there was one vendor who said to Conchepta's face that she would normally charge less, but because we were with her, the price was almost double and she wasn't going to negotiate.)

We got most of the things that we went there to get. We had intentionally not packed some items with the intent of buying them here, both because they are cheaper here (though not as much we expected) and because they look more local. Value World (our local thrift store) had no cotton skirts on the racks in mid-winter. So Ellie got some skirts, John got some work pants and shirts, and Conchepta got some vegetables to make dinner. Suspenders we could not find. I don't know why I didn't think to bring any of my 4 pairs of suspenders, but oh well.

Defintely an overwhelming experience.

I forgot to mention the luggage situation that we encountered both times we flew. We checked 3 bags, 2 suitcases and my gigantic hiking pack. They have brought the weight limit down to 50 lbs per bag, so we roughly weighed them before we left, and figured that if we were over, we would just pay the $25, because it's worth it. Well, turns out it's $50 because it was an international flight, so we hastily rearranged luggage and our bags were 49.5, 50.3 and 50 lbs respectively. AMAZING. Same story when we left heathrow. 23 kg limit, and had to rearrange two bags to 23.6, 22.9, and 23.3. AMAZING again, because they let us go both times, and because we had bought some stuff in England. When we fly back, we're going to buy another piece of luggage.


About Rwanda

Rwanda, especially Kigali , is so different from Kampala that I (ellie) basically had undergone a new kind of culture shock. Most of this was due to the language barrier that we don't have in Uganda (most of the time) so it was quite scary finding out what to do when virtually no one spoke English. Fortunately, John took 2 semesters of French at EMU and it helped us at least do the basic things like pay for taxis and ask for directions.

To illustrate the difference, here is a taxi park in Kigali, which looks remarkably orderly.



I don't have a picture of a taxi park in Kampala because I was too busy trying to not get run over, and my camera might have been stolen out of my hands.

If you saw the taxi park in Kampala, you would not believe it. It looks like mass chaos with 300 minibuses all jostling for postion, but Jenny assures me that there is an amazing organizatoinal mind behind it all.

Feb 4th.

New Hope Kasana.

Wow it is hot. After more hot and dusty bus travel, we are finally here. It is very good to be here.
We have our own little circular hut to stay in with a private bathroom (a locked stall with a hole in a concrete slab.)

As one of the staff said: "we write our emails on wireless internet, by candlelight."

I (john) immediately felt as soon as we pulled into the compound that we belonged here. It felt good and "right", like a puzzle piece fitting in. That doesn't of course confirm that we are going to be here forever, just that it is very clearly where we are called right now.

Our accomodations are a little more rustic than we're used to, but that is part of the package. We are lucky to have a whole hut to ourselves.

It was really hot when we got here, but it is cooling down some now ( 9 pm ) The only problem is that our hut is made of brick, concrete and mud with a tin peak roof, so it retains the heat pretty well. We only have electricity from 7-10 pm, and 9-12 am.

It has been really great to spend so much time with different missionaries. We got to spend a week with the Davises, then the Bennets, and of course now we'll spend a lot of time at New Hope with the staff here. We have gotten a short and long perspective on what "missionary life" is like; the Davises have been in Uganda for like 4 months, and with a newborn, and Gary Bennet has been in Rwanda for 25 years, and two of his colleagues have been there for around 30.

We have sat in on prayer meetings with the Uganda World Venture folks, and a business meeting for the Rwanda World Venture folks, both of which were great to observe and be a part of. We also got to go to Jon and Jenny's church, Kampala Baptist Church for the Luganda language service and the couples sunday school class, which was wonderful. We hadn't been to church in a long time, because a lot of our travel days had been on sundays. It was edifying to have a good solid conversation about our fellowship with God, and our fellowship in the Body. Ironically, we have not had a lot of fellowship while we've been travelling, so it was a good reminder of something that we already knew and had been feeling internally. Journey class folk, we miss our fellowship time with you!

The Rwandan World Venture Field



Feb 5th

New Hope

Well, we're getting settled in to our place here. Ellie spent a few hours in the primary school here and also graded some papers, and John tried to set up the laptop so we can get Internet and helped start work on the guesthouse. Finishing the guesthouse is the big priority for everyone here who has any kind of construction skills, so I will probably be doing that for at least two weeks until they get some serious work done on it. Right now there is no roof whatsoever, and we spent the afternoon on the ground making trusses for the new additions.They have a group coming on Feb 10th, so we need to get at least part of it covered. It is actually quite similar to what I am used to doing, except there are no power tools, the wood is green and wet, or old and rock hard, and the wood varies in dimension from piece to piece by about 30%. I wish I had my hammer and a few hand tools.

Tomorrow will be the first full day of work, because today in the morning we had a walkaround orientation to the campus. Time to go to bed.